"You conspired with Milo against the state."

"Nonsense!"

"You encouraged him to raise the insurrection. He might have balked at doing so, but for your meddling."

She looked at me coldly. "You can't prove that."

"Calpurnia didn't require proof. I merely had to convince her. I explained what I knew, and she insisted on sending those men along with me to make sure you don't try to slip away before Isauricus and his lictors come for you. Conspiring against the Roman state is a crime punishable by death."

Fausta laughed shrilly. "Will they put me on trial, then?"

"They won't have to. The Ultimate Decree is still in effect. The consul Isauricus has the authority to take any steps necessary to safeguard the state. That includes the summary execution of traitors."

She looked at me with fear in her eyes. "Damn you, Gordianus! Why are doing this to me?"

"You did it to yourself, Fausta. Why couldn't you leave Milo to his fate without interfering?"

"Because he was a hopeless bungler and a fool and a coward!" she cried. "Left to his own devices, he'd still be hiding in some hole in the Subura waiting for the right omen to come along. He needed a nudge-no, a kick in the back side!-to get him moving."

"And you gave him that kick by arranging for Cassandra to utter a prophecy of success for the insurrection."

"Yes! And it worked like a charm. What an actress she was! She delivered a performance that convinced even Caelius. It must have been quite magnificent. I only wish I'd been there to see it, but I'd surely have laughed and given her away."

"Where did it happen? When?"

"In her shabby little room in the Subura. She stalled them until nightfall-the visions she described were always more convincing by lamplight, she told me-and then she delivered the last performance of her life. While you were upstairs, sleeping off the drug they gave you, Cassandra was groveling on the dirt floor of her room, foaming at the mouth and uttering the words Milo most wanted to hear. I'd told her just what to say, of course. I knew the images that would appeal most to Milo's brutish imagination. Describe it thus, I told her: An endless triumphal procession with Milo and Caelius at the head, the acclamations of the people like thunder in their ears, Trebonius and Isauricus and all their other enemies in chains behind them, and statues of solid gold in their likenesses installed in the Forum, while somewhere in a gray void we see Pompey and Caesar reduced to the size of dwarves, ripping open each other's bellies with their teeth, devouring one another's entrails in an endless circle, like the worm that eats its own tail. Imagine the dreams that vision put into Milo's head! The next morning he could hardly wait to set out. Caelius was just as eager. They met with their closest supporters, took some with them, left others to manage affairs in their absence, and off they went, convinced that Fortune and the Fates were firmly on their side."

"While I still slept," I whispered, "alone in that room upstairs."

"Not alone. Before he left that morning, Caelius told Cassandra what had become of you. She looked in on you, then left Rupa to look after you."

"Where did she go?"

"She came to this house, of course, to collect her money."

"Money," I said dully. "That was how you persuaded her to go against Calpurnia's wishes? All it took was a little gold?"

"No. It also required a great deal of persuasion. When I told her what I wanted her to do-to encourage Milo to get on with his hopeless insurrection-she resisted. For a while she kept up her pretense of being a genuine seeress. I told her it was no use trying to fool me, and whatever Calpurnia was paying her-that was an educated guess on my part, that she was Calpurnia's agent-I would pay her more. I kept harrying her and offering more gold, until at last she weakened. Put yourself in her place, Gordianus. Here in Rome, thanks to all the skullduggery surrounding the war, Cassandra found herself in a position to make a great deal of money-probably the only chance in her lifetime for such a woman to make so much money. Can you blame her for seizing the opportunity to maximize her fortune? 'Where's the risk?' I asked her. 'If Milo wins, he'll shower you with riches and honors. If he dies, he'll be silent forever. Whatever happens, you'll receive your pay from both of us, with Calpurnia never the wiser.' "

I shook my head. "Then it's just as I said: in the end, all it took was a little gold."

"Not a little gold, Gordianus, a great deal of it! That's what I promised her, anyway. And it wasn't entirely for herself. She said she needed the money… for you."

"For me?"

"So she said. When she came here to collect her money, she seemed to think she had to justify herself to me-as if I cared about her sense of honor. 'I would never have done it,' she told me, 'except that I need more money. I need it for the man I love. He's in a great deal of trouble. He's accumulated an enormous debt. It's crushing the life out of him. If I can free him of it, I will.' You didn't know, Gordianus? Cassandra was thinking of you."

I felt a fire in my head. "But instead of paying her, you poisoned her. Why, Fausta?"

"Because I had no more money! The partial payment I had given her in advance was all I had. She came here looking for the balance, but I had nothing to give her, not even a token payment. I stalled her for as long as I could; I told her I was sending a slave to fetch the money for her. In fact, I dispatched the fellow to the Subura to finish off Rupa. The slave I sent was a big, burly fellow, a former gladiator like Birria. I thought he'd have no trouble, but it seems that Rupa was more than a match for him."

"That was the dead body I found when I woke! Rupa killed him-there in the room while I lay unconscious. Cassandra left Rupa to watch over me. When your man arrived, there must have been a struggle, and Rupa broke his neck. Then Rupa must have panicked. He gathered up everything in Cassandra's room and ran off." Everything, I thought, except her biting stick, which he must have dropped or over looked.

"So far as I know, the mute is still in hiding," said Fausta.

"And even as I woke, Cassandra was here, in this house…"

"Waiting with me in the garden. When one of the slaves brought in a cold porridge for the midday meal and served a portion to each of us, Cassandra suspected nothing."

"What poison did you use?"

"How should I know? I bought it from a fellow who's been in that sort of business a long time; Milo used to go to him occasionally. Painful, or painless, he asked me. I told him I didn't care so long as it was guaranteed to work quickly. But it didn't. The poison acted very slowly. We both finished our porridge and put the bowls aside. Nothing happened. I began to think I had misjudged the dose, or perhaps I'd even given her the wrong portion. Had I poisoned myself? I sat there imagining a burning in my gut as I watched her, unable to take my eyes off her, waiting to see the first sign of distress on her face. Finally-finally!-the poison began to take effect. At first she merely felt ill. She said she thought something in the porridge had disagreed with her. Then a look came over her face-shock, panic-as she realized what was happening. She screamed and threw her empty bowl at me and ran from the garden. I tried to stop her. We struggled. I tore her tunica. She escaped and ran from the house. Birria went after her, but she lost him. He didn't know which way she'd gone.

"I was frantic with worry. Who might she see before the poison finished her? What might she tell them? Finally, later that day, I heard the report of her death in the marketplace. She died in your arms, I was told. Had she told you what happened? Surely not, because hours passed, then days, and you did nothing about it. Still, I was torn by doubts. That was why I dared to come to see her funeral pyre. You were there. So were Calpurnia and some of the other women who had known Cassandra. Everyone saw me, yet no one reacted. That was when I knew for certain that no one suspected I had killed her. I watched her burn, and I was finally satisfied that I had gotten away with it. At last I could turn my thoughts to Milo and wait for the delicious news of his destruction."